Spring 2024 Editorial

We are walking, one foot after the other for peace and planet, justice and democracy … walking the way legions of people have before us when their government turned its back and they had to go directly to the people.

This walk is similar, but also different. We are not just protesting; we are walking to explain to millions of Americans along our route how Madmen Arsonists have come to govern us; actually run our country—and what that means for peace, for our planet, for justice and for democracy.

That same mob and their confederates dictate U.S. policy on health care, education, food, transportation and virtually every sector of our lives—to the detriment of 99% of us and the enrichment of the remaining 1%.

The Earth and we, its creatures, have no more time to simply decry injustices and protest harms, as important as it is to do that. We simply must attack the roots, not just the branches; practice fire prevention, not just firefighting.

That means we will continue to oppose the damage and injustice corporations and their madmen arsonists do, and we’re also learning how to stop them from governing, stop them from incinerating what is left of our peace, our planet, our justice and our democracy. We can do that by ending corporations’ ability to lobby, to buy elections, to write legislation or to participate in any way in deciding what life will be like!

These are some of what we will keep foremost in our thoughts as we walk:

• To end to war, especially the looming threat of nuclear war so that children may grow up without the worry of nuclear Armageddon.
• In solidarity with the people of Gaza who are determined to survive a brutal genocide, and for West Bank Palestinians living, resisting and dying for 75 years under Israeli apartheid and occupation.
• For the jobs, food, shelter, medical care and education every person deserves
• To provide, in person, a counterpoint to the lies, deceptions and omissions fed to the public by the corporate media
• Because we do not want or need an economy based on making missiles, tanks, cancer-causing depleted uranium weapons, cluster bombs that continue to kill children and others for generations, and nuclear weapons, which threaten all life on earth.
• To save the oceans and the whales, dolphins and sea creatures that we are intimately connected with.
• Because the greed for profits from fossil fuels and wars is polluting and destroying the very land, water and air we need to survive
• With awareness that the land we walk upon was stolen from those who lived here for thousands of years before us
• To express solidarity with indigenous Nations and the deep respect and love they have for Mother Earth; living with Her, not in domination of Her
• Because there must be another way, because militarism and war will never be the answer.

Ultimately, we are walking for people, peace and life on this beautiful planet we all call home. It is the only one we have. There is no Planet B.

We are walking to celebrate the end of simply protesting and reacting and the beginning of governing ourselves and running the show! THAT is why we are walking 600 miles from Ogunquit, Maine, to Washington, DC!

Come join us for a mile or a hundred. Invite your friends, family and comrades to walk with us. Meet us along the way with a PB&J or an apple pie. Meet us in Washington on July 5, 6,and 7 for a massive party and rally and then as we join the No to NATO events that will be going on in DC.

The PeaceWalk 2024 for Peace and Planet, Justice and Democracy will be memorable. For more information, visit peacewalk2024.org.

—Mike Ferner

Mike Ferner was formerly the national director of Veterans For Peace and a former member of Toledo City Council. He is senior editor of Peace & Planet News and the author of Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq.